This invention relates in general to monitoring of the cooling action and condition of coolant in a nuclear power reactor.
A required safety measure for operation of nuclear power plants involves detection of coolant level in the reactor fuel core, to provide warnings of dangerous coolant loss. The installation of measuring and monitoring systems for such purposes is regarded as very costly because of equipment costs and modification of reactor design to accommodate such equipment.
Further, providing only coolant level information is sometimes insufficient for recognition of inadequate fuel core cooling caused by significant reactor malfunction such as high void fraction-pumped flow and stagnant boil off. On the other hand, non-significant coolant loss detection must be avoided to prevent unnecessary and wasteful power plant shutdowns.
It is, therefore, an important object of the present invention to monitor coolant conditions in an economically feasible and meaningful manner.
An additional object is to provide advanced warnings of inadequate fuel core cooling by a monitoring system covering a full range of operation.